Burcu Darst's Avatar

Burcu Darst

@burcudarst.bsky.social

Genetic Epidemiologist, Assistant Professor, Fred Hutch Cancer Center

129 Followers  |  155 Following  |  11 Posts  |  Joined: 07.12.2024  |  2.4193

Latest posts by burcudarst.bsky.social on Bluesky

Preview
The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge Over the course of seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore was seen reading 339 books on screen. How many have you read? From...

For #Readers: The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge is pretty darn great. It has the 339 books (novels, nonfiction, plays, poetry) that Rory of the The Gilmore Girls* is shown reading. I'm only at 23% so I need to get to steppin'.

* I've haven't seen an episode...yet.

share.google/2IBopgRRRtpf...

10.11.2025 22:48 β€” πŸ‘ 799    πŸ” 147    πŸ’¬ 57    πŸ“Œ 19

8 high level positions at NIH posted including 6 institute director positions (NIMH, NIGMS, NICHD, NIDCR, NHGRI, NLM).

Only open for 2 weeks (applications due November 21).

Application materials include a) CV b) vision statement c) a photocopy of doctoral degree.

hr.nih.gov/careers/open...

07.11.2025 22:20 β€” πŸ‘ 78    πŸ” 69    πŸ’¬ 18    πŸ“Œ 15
Post image

uva rejects the compact

17.10.2025 20:42 β€” πŸ‘ 280    πŸ” 40    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 8
Preview
ASHG 2025 PRIMED Abstracts

Attending #ASHG25? Learn how @prsmethods.bsky.social investigators are improving polygenic risk prediction in diverse populations by visiting these talks and posters docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

14.10.2025 16:14 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Further, while PRS are highly predictive of T2D risk across populations, more work is needed to ensure equitable clinical utility.

HUGE thank you to the many collaborators across many cohorts and biobanks who made this work possible! (3/3)

09.10.2025 04:00 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Our findings suggest that across populations, PRS have the potential to inform early interventions for T2D and risks of T2D complications and comorbidities. However, it is important to consider contexts to interpret PRS, as T2D PRS performance varies based on demographic and lifestyle factors. (2/3)

09.10.2025 04:00 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Polygenic risk score for type 2 diabetes shows context-dependent effects across populations - Nature Communications Polygenic risk scores can help identify individuals at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Here, the authors characterise a multi-ancestry score across nearly 900,000 people, showing that its predictive value depends on demographic and clinical context and extends to related traits and complications.

Excited to share our recent work characterizing a type 2 diabetes (T2D) polygenic risk score (PRS) in a collaboration that included 244,637 T2D cases and 637,891 controls, led by @boyaguo.bsky.social! (1/3)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

09.10.2025 04:00 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image 27.09.2025 23:50 β€” πŸ‘ 63    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Fred Hutch Girls Who Code Fall 2025 Application Please click the link to complete this form.

Fred Hutch Girls Who Code is rolling again with another session on computational biology! Please share the word with high school students and educators

πŸ“… Tuesdays 4:30-6pm, Oct 14 - Dec 2
πŸ“ Fred Hutch (in-person)
🎯 Small groups, comp bio & fun

Apply by Oct 10: form.jotform.com/fredhutch/fr...

25.09.2025 15:47 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

New cures feel sudden, but the seeds were planted decades ago by basic scientists.

Which seeds will turn into cures? Unpredictable looking forward, a straight line looking back. πŸ§ͺ🧬 🧡

25.09.2025 01:39 β€” πŸ‘ 141    πŸ” 52    πŸ’¬ 5    πŸ“Œ 5
Preview
Current polygenic risk scores are unlikely to exacerbate unfairness in cardiovascular disease risk prediction Background: Current cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction models place many individuals in an intermediate risk category where clinical decision-making remains uncertain, highlighting a critica...

PRS are well know to have variable performance across ancestries, frequently with a European bias. We looked closely at fairness of PRS for CVD risk prediction, both with PRS on it's own and in an integrated risk score...

Our results were surprising... πŸ‘‰ www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

19.09.2025 15:29 β€” πŸ‘ 28    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
How data.table's fread can save you a lot of time and memory, and take input from shell commands - Jozef's Rblog In this post we write about experience with data.table's fread for reading tabular data from text files such as .csvs and how it compares to other packages like readr or base R.

Best of both worlds: You can pass a Linux command to data.table
jozef.io/r917-fread-c...

21.09.2025 18:47 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome

This is now the third year that I'm reminded how greatful I am to @jkpritch.bsky.social when I'm preparing my human genetics lectures, for An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome (web.stanford.edu/group/pritch...). It really is the textbook we are all missing. Its crazy no real alternative exists.

12.09.2025 12:07 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

I'm hiring a computational biologist interested in complex trait genetics using deep learning approaches. Reach out to me, if interested.

12.09.2025 19:00 β€” πŸ‘ 38    πŸ” 46    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

This was neat work by @nmancuso.bsky.social et al developing and benchmarking a new multi-ancestry fine-mapping method (β€œSuShiE”). I learned something about the performance of pooled v stratified analyses but still have some Qs. 1/n

08.09.2025 11:37 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Our Department of Health issued a Standing Order for the COVID-19 vaccine today, as we work to ensure that all Washingtonians 6 months or older have access to these vaccines.

I will do everything in my power to protect our residents with policies still based in rigorous science.

05.09.2025 22:06 β€” πŸ‘ 633    πŸ” 108    πŸ’¬ 24    πŸ“Œ 10
Preview
UCSC Genome Browser User Satisfaction Survey | SurveyMars I have posted a survey titled 'UCSC Genome Browser User Satisfaction Survey' on SurveyMars. Please help me by filling it out. Thank you very much!

Please take a moment to tell us how you use the Genome Browser: surveymars.com/q/mnb...

Your feedback supports future improvements and our continued funding.

05.09.2025 22:07 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 12    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores Our understanding of the dependence of the genetic and environmental architecture of common diseases on age is incomplete. Here, we use longitudinal data to quantify age-dependent genetic and environm...

Excited to share our latest manuscript, "Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores," led by Xilin Jiang: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am attempting an explainer thread for the first time here:
(I am usually too exhausted to post one)

02.09.2025 23:08 β€” πŸ‘ 54    πŸ” 25    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 4

Yesterday the president demanded that evidence about Covid vaccines be shown to the public. Today @apoorvanyt.bsky.social & I run through some of the studies made public over the past 4+ years that show that the vaccines work. Gift link: nyti.ms/46k17Tq

02.09.2025 21:21 β€” πŸ‘ 1889    πŸ” 686    πŸ’¬ 57    πŸ“Œ 35
Post image

You're invited to the 3rd Annual BACPAC #ProstateCancer Community Research Symposium β€” a free event hosted by Fred Hutch Cancer Center and @uwmedicine.bsky.social, in collaboration with BACPAC and ZERO Prostate Cancer.

Register: https://bit.ly/4fSYyv5

24.08.2025 18:05 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
An arrow with a LaTeX equation

An arrow with a LaTeX equation

Trigonometric functions and a unit circle

Trigonometric functions and a unit circle

A bivariate change model with structured residuals

A bivariate change model with structured residuals

A hierarchical model of cognitive abilities

A hierarchical model of cognitive abilities

Now on CRAN, ggdiagram is a #ggplot2 extension that draws diagrams programmatically in #Rstats. Allows for precise control in how objects, labels, and equations are placed in relation to each other.
wjschne.github.io/ggdiagram/ar...

20.08.2025 10:43 β€” πŸ‘ 180    πŸ” 74    πŸ’¬ 10    πŸ“Œ 9
Preview
Rapid Response: Reinvesting in Racial and Indigenous Health Equity Research The purpose of this call for proposals is to meet the current moment by supporting timely, actionable health equity research that has been interrupted by shifts in federal funding.

ATTN: Robert Wood Johnson has money to support β€œcanceled” research on racial-indigenous health equity

www.rwjf.org/en/grants/ac...

20.08.2025 14:43 β€” πŸ‘ 203    πŸ” 147    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 5
Post image

I'm looking to recruit a PhD student to study patterns of local adaptation and introgression across the spruce hybrid zone in the Rockies near Calgary. Projects can include field work, bioinformatics, pop gen theory, or comparison to plant/ conifer species
yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...

20.08.2025 20:18 β€” πŸ‘ 66    πŸ” 75    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2
An anole extends its dewlap, which says "call for scientists!"

An anole extends its dewlap, which says "call for scientists!"

Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.

20.08.2025 20:45 β€” πŸ‘ 240    πŸ” 178    πŸ’¬ 8    πŸ“Œ 14

We are hiring into 3 (THREE!) tenure track lines this year at Wake Forest β€” if you’re looking please reach out, I love chatting about our department! We are a vibrant group that love & embrace the teacher-scholar model πŸ‘©β€πŸ«

20.08.2025 11:46 β€” πŸ‘ 52    πŸ” 46    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

happy to say my new department is hiring an associate/full professor: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30328

please apply!

18.08.2025 22:22 β€” πŸ‘ 27    πŸ” 16    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships:
Expressions of interest can be submitted until 31 October 2025.

Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships: Expressions of interest can be submitted until 31 October 2025.

Director at Max Planck - a unique position! The Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships is open now and can be submitted by the 31st of October 2025. ➑️ mpg.de/directors - Please share the Open Call among potential candidates.

01.08.2025 09:06 β€” πŸ‘ 162    πŸ” 196    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 15

ICYMI it's not a Max Planck directorship but still a great opportunity to join an exciting research environment down under 😁 bsky.app/profile/mike...

03.08.2025 18:18 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Are you an early-career biologist or ecologist who would benefit from an invited seminar? Would you like to come to UMaine next fall or spring to give a talk? Leave a brief comment with some info about what you do. I'm co-hosting our seminar series again, and am filling out our rosters.

30.07.2025 19:37 β€” πŸ‘ 229    πŸ” 174    πŸ’¬ 53    πŸ“Œ 7
Garud Lab

I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!

22.07.2025 17:51 β€” πŸ‘ 85    πŸ” 100    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 4

@burcudarst is following 20 prominent accounts